


Pryce and Carter's 10 Commandments

by theantepenultimateriddle



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: F/F, Footnotes!, I just thought the name was funny, Implications of torture, This is my attempt at something funny, are you there god? It's Eiffel again, basically a biblical AU for anyone who hasn't read good omens, but yeah Pryce and cutter are literally demons, death eventually probably, god is the Dear Listeners I guess, lovelace is a demon and Minkowski is an angel, southern california is the perfect place for an apocalypse, the wolf 359 good omens-ish AU no one wanted and no one needed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-03-26 10:02:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13855497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theantepenultimateriddle/pseuds/theantepenultimateriddle
Summary: In the beginning...





	1. Chapter 1

In the beginning, a hive mind of unfathomable, ineffable, and quite impossible to describe beings said “Let there be light,” and there was light. Then this hive mind of unfathomable, ineffable, and quite impossible to describe beings (who for convenience and the lack of a better word we will now refer to as “God”) said, “That’s much brighter than expected. Shit.”

God endured this light for seven more days of making things, which frankly we should thank and eternally praise them for; oh how God has suffered so that we may be, etcetera etcetera. Then they promptly turned their back on the politics of heaven and hell, on angels and demons and especially on the young planet Earth that was spinning around and around in space beneath all of that, and went into a small dark quiet heavenly room to tune in on the cosmic radio and listen to the show. 

They tuned in, eventually, on a snake slithering on the ground* speaking to an angel walking next to her, side-by-side. The sound quality wasn't great, but God suspected that would change, and the conversation was easily interesting enough to make up for it. They already knew what was being said, of course, but it’s better this way.

Let’s listen along, shall we?

* * *

The snake sighed and raised her voice to the angel, looking up with her yellow slit-pupiled eyes to the brown ones in the face so far above her. “Hey, do you mind carrying me or something? I keep worrying that you’re going to step on me by accident.” The snake-- serpent, technically-- had no name, but she had been a captain in the first war and thus was inclined to use the rank as her name until she found a better one. “Please?”

The angel, who was called Minkowski*, stared down at the green-scaled creature in the bushes next to her and sighed. “Fine. But only because it’s in my job contract while I’m here to do as little harm as possible, even to demons. And we all already know how this part is going to play out, don’t we? So stepping on you would mess everything up.” 

“Glad to know the logic behind that decision,” the Captain muttered to herself. She opened her mouth again, but Minkowski leaned down and scooped her up without warning, holding her more delicately that one might think a serpent should be held. The Captain was briefly surprised into immobility, then overcame it enough to slither her way up and coil around Minkowski’s bicep. “So,” she hissed conversationally, her forked tongue tickling Minkowski’s skin, “why do you think we’re kicking things off this way?” 

“What do you mean?” Minkowski kept walking, her steps falling on the underbrush smooth and even, but the Captain noticed that the white feathers of the wings that trailed behind her were starting to ruffle slightly as she pushed past the trees. She pretended she hadn’t seen. Even angels-- especially angels, in fact-- have their dignity.

“I mean,” the Captain said, then paused and flicked her tongue out again in a delicate motion. “You know what I mean. I talk the girl into biting the apple, she talks the guy into it, everyone gets kicked out of paradise. You have to wonder why, right? Why go through this whole production? Why not let them just… live here?”

“I don’t have to wonder,” said Minkowski, tromping slightly faster through the lush greenness. “I’m--”

“--under orders,” the Captain finished. “I know. I _know._ So am I. But you can’t tell me that you haven’t asked yourself at least once, why go through all this trouble?”

“Did he ever tell you that you had to tell her to eat the fruit?” Minkowski stopped at the tree line, looking out onto a field. In it stood a man and a woman, both dressed less than modestly, gamboling barefoot and delighted in the grass. The Captain looked at them both and wondered how they didn’t get splinters.

“No,” she conceded to Minkowski’s question. “He just said to do whatever would cause the most chaos.” 

“Uh-huh,” said Minkowski. “And couldn’t you do it any other way?” 

The Captain thought about it for a long moment, then puffed out a long, dry sigh. “Probably. But sometimes when he tells me to use my creativity, I can see him glaring and motioning his head in a certain direction. Wouldn’t want to risk it.”

“Oh.” They were both silent for a moment, watching the two fairly-newly-created humans in their antics. The Captain was beginning to feel a tad voyeuristic. Eventually, though, the man split off and walked into the forest on the opposite side of the clearing, leaving the woman standing alone in the grass.  
Minkowski looked down at the Captain. “I guess this is where you get off, then. It’s kind of sad, actually. They looked so happy.”

“Yeah. And she’s pretty cute.” The Captain snorted delicately. “I wonder if she’s into scales.”

Minkowski made a noise that might have been a stifled snort of laughter and might have been her impression of a dog choking on a plastic candy wrapper. After a moment she seemed to recover and glared down at the Captain. “Just go do your job.”

“With pleasure,” said the Captain, giving Minkowski what might have been a wink. “I’ll see you on the outside, then?”

“Doubtful,” said Minkowski. “Don’t hold your breath.” But the Captain was already off through the grass to the woman in the clearing, and Minkowski sighed and slumped back against a tree. “If you’re listening, boss,” she muttered to herself, “I had nothing to do with this.”

* * *

In the dimension known as Heaven, the collection of beings that was God chuckled and turned the radio off for the time being. All they had to do now is wait. 

Free will. Wasn’t that something?

* * *

And later, but not by much…

Satan rolled her eyes, turning her attention from the Captain’s report in her hands to the man sitting on the ornate throne at the other end of the long hall. “And what, exactly, was so urgent that I come and see?” She crumpled the papers and tossed them over her shoulder with a smooth, dismissive motion, keeping her eyes fixed on the shadowed figure in front of her.

“Well,” said the man, leaning forwards out of the shadows to let the firelight catch on his face in ghoulish flickers, “I’d have thought you’d be happy about the success of our plan! We’ve ejected the humans--” Satan made a face at the word, but he ignored it, “--from paradise, we’ve planted the seeds of corruption. Thanks to our dear Captain, the world is ready for our domination.” 

“Mm-hm. What part of any of this did I not already know?” Satan’s voice was like ice, echoing unpleasantly in the high-ceilinged stone of the chamber, and the man on the throne looked visibly disappointed at her reaction. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared. “Our plan hasn’t succeeded yet. Our plan has only barely begun. And the only way we’re going to win the endgame is to play the game far, far ahead.” She paused. “We need an agent on the surface. Has the Captain returned from her mission yet?” 

“No. Not yet,” said the man. “I believe she was waiting for us to call her back.” 

Satan ignored his questioning look. “Good,” she said, “because we’re not going to. She’ll be staying on Earth, keeping an eye out. Permanently. Now inform her of the change of plans, why don’t you? Give her a commendation while you’re at it.”

Both of the man’s eyebrows rose, ascending on his forehead as if they were trying to escape into his slicked-back dark hair. He moved his hands to rest on his knees, steepling his fingers. “Are you sure you don’t want to tell her? It’s about time you took your position here, after all.”

Satan scoffed. “A leadership position that forces me to deal with bureaucratic squabbles and workplace debates? No, I’ll happily let you keep that position, and that throne with it.” One of the corners of her mouth twitched up in a smile. “Besides,” she said, “that’s always been more like your brand of evil.”

She turned and walked out of the throne room, her footsteps falling unevenly on the rough-hewn stone of the floor as she left. Beelzebub, the Prince and Figurehead of Hell, watched her go. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Contrary to popular belief, the serpent did slither before the events that culminated with Adam and Eve being kicked out of Eden. God had realized that, after removing the limbs from a lizard, any other mode of locomotion would just make it (and them) look somewhat ridiculous.  
> *Modern scholars claim the name Minkowski is a surname of Polish origin, and they’re correct, right up until the part where they claim Polish is not a direct language descendant of the original angelic script. Although, on some level, most languages are (barring German). That’s where things get confusing.


	2. Chapter 2

**_DRAMATIS PERSONAE_ **

_Supernatural Beings_

The Dear Listeners (A Collective Also Known As God)

The Blessed Eternal (A Messenger of God and Very Fond of Plants)

Minkowski (An Angel and Musical Fanatic)

Miranda Pryce (Satan, A Fallen Angel and Behind-The-Scenes Mastermind of Hell)

Marcus Cutter (Beelzebub, A Fallen Angel; Prince and Figurehead Leader of Hell)

Rachel Young (A Fallen Angel, Duchess and Personal Assistant of Hell)

Alana Maxwell, Daniel Jacobi, and Warren Kepler (Fallen Angels and Supervisors of Hell)

Lovelace (A Fallen Angel by the Broadest Definitions of Both Those Words)

_The Both of You_

Doug Eiffel (Jesus 2: Electric Boogaloo)

Hera [Redacted] (Antichrist Number Two Hundred and Fourteen)

_Other_

Rhea (A Failed Antichrist and Ward-Slash-Prisoner of Heaven)

* * *

It was a nice day.

In fact, it was a day just like most of the 364 preceding it, and the ones preceding that, and the ones preceding that; Southern California weather was nothing if not predictable. The heat and sun additionally made the days quite pleasant for Isabel Lovelace, who, despite no longer being visibly serpentine in shape and form, still became almost non-functionally sluggish and tired whenever the temperature dropped below 50 degrees.

She had insisted, as soon as possible, on moving to a place with warm and placid weather.

Slightly after that, she had insisted that Minkowski come with her.

And speaking of Minkowski-- Lovelace leaned on the horn, startling a few people walking near where her car was idling outside the second-hand bookstore. There was no response from inside, though Lovelace could see movement through the small windows, and she swore and pounded on the horn again before fumbling for her seatbelt and unclipping it. She scrambled out and slammed the door shut behind her, then strode over to the front door of the bookstore, not bothering to lock the car behind her; anyone who tried to steal it would have bigger problems to get around than a car alarm. Lovelace shoved her way into the bookstore, ignoring the “CLOSED” sign with its subtitle reading _“Lovelace, this means you”,_ and barged in with the mechanical ding of the bell above heralding her entrance. _“Minkowski!”_

There was a muttered “damn it all” from behind the counter, making Lovelace flinch, and Minkowski’s head popped up.* “Lovelace, why are you here? I told you I’d meet you at the restaurant tonight, you don’t need to come here and bother me during inventory.”

Lovelace shook her head. “It’s not about that. We have a problem, angel.”

“Don’t call me that.” Minkowski’s eyes scanned Lovelace’s expression for insincerity. When she found none, the outrage slid off her face like water off a duck and was replaced by an emotion halfway between resignation and nausea.* “What is it? What’s going on?”

“I…” Lovelace paused.

“Just tell me!” Minkowski slammed her hand on the countertop with a _bang._

Lovelace took a deep breath, mentally preparing herself for Minkowski’s reaction. This was likely to be a big one. She kept her face solemn as she spoke.

“I... I lost my jacket and I was wondering if you knew where it might--”

She hadn’t finished her sentence before Minkowski launched herself up and threw the pen she was holding at Lovelace’s face with an overhand that might have made a major-league pitcher turn green with envy (if she hadn’t missed spectacularly). “You--” Minkowski clenched her fists and took a deep breath, trying to channel some divine patience. “You scared me. _Dammit,_ Lovelace, I thought something had actually gone wrong this time.”

Lovelace spread her hands in a _no-can-do_ gesture. “Hey, in my defense, you fall for it every time.” Minkowski opened her mouth to respond, but Lovelace rushed on before she could. “Really, though, I came to cancel for tonight.” She made a face. “Downstairs is sending someone to meet with me, and I doubt it’ll be pleasant. I tried to call, but you didn’t answer.”

Minkowski looked away, a flush rising to her cheeks. “I thought you were a telemarketer,” she muttered. 

“Really? Wow, I’m wounded. I might be a demon, but I’m not that evil.” Lovelace paused, then sighed, her shoulders slumping. “I just wanted to tell you about the change of plans. Maybe we could do lunch instead?”

“As tempting as the offer sounds, no. Inventory, remember?” Minkowski gestured to the stacks of books and papers around her. “Dinner was really the only option, and it looks like that won’t happen.”

Lovelace frowned. “Alright,” she said, “how about tomorrow? You do have to eat sometime.”

“No, I don’t,” said Minkowski. “Neither of us do, remember?”

“Technically, no. But it is one of the pleasures of the flesh you can indulge in.” Lovelace planted her hands on the counter and leaned towards Minkowski. Her voice dropped, becoming conspiratorial. “We can go to the sushi restaurant you like. Reservations are always open, remember?”

“You know I don’t like you using diabolical forces to get our seats,” Minkowski protested, but there was no real bite behind it. Lovelace raised an eyebrow, and she relented with a wave of her hand. “Fine, but only if you pay with human money this time.”

Lovelace beamed. “No problem. I’ll see you there.” Then she turned and headed back out of the bookstore and towards her car, leaving Minkowski in her wake.

To the casual observer, the woman getting into the beat-up Jeep on the side of the road was no one to be remembered. If you had asked them what she looked like, though, they would have said this: a tall woman with short and curly dark hair, wearing an open plaid flannel over another plaid flannel and khaki shorts as a stunning middle finger to any kind of fashion. Had they moved nearer they would have seen yellow eyes and slit pupils, but no one usually came close enough to notice, and when they did they mostly assumed a logical explanation; colored contacts, perhaps, or a genetic disorder. Mostly, though, they forgot about her, which suited her fine.

Lovelace peeled out of the parking space at a speed far faster than the state of her car suggested it should have been able to go and headed down the street, leaving a trail of honking horns and annoyed drivers behind her. The bits of malicious thought being directed at her almost made her laugh; it was strange how much hellish energy could be generated just by existing a little bit inconveniently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Minkowski, though at first totally opposed, had taken to swearing like a natural after the first thousand years or so. Lovelace had already been proficient, but personal problems with damning things prevented her from fully exercising her skill.  
> *This is an emotion only those who are adept at cleaning up other people’s messes can channel, and even then only when they have a feeling that the mess in question is going to be very messy indeed.


	3. Chapter 3

A graveyard is said to be the ideal place for demons to lurk, but in truth there are too many religious symbols for any demon to feel safe in one. Demons are also by and large image-conscious enough to recognize that secret meetings at nighttime in a graveyard do very little to make Hell seem more appealing to the common human.* But the rules are still rules, and thus for temporary visits from demonic and angelic entities there are a few specific places where the business must be conducted.

For example, the overgrown back lot of a 7-11. That’ll do it every time.

It was past midnight when Lovelace got to the meeting spot*, and the emissary was already waiting for her in the weeds, tapping her foot impatiently. A short woman with an attitude and stiletto heels that both gave her the impression of being much taller, she was dressed immaculately in a business suit and pencil skirt, her fingernails smoothly manicured in red. She looked both out of place and bored, though one of her eyebrows did arch slowly when she saw Lovelace.

“Is that really what you’re wearing, Captain?” she asked. Then she held up a hand, stopping the response rising to Lovelace’s lips. “Don’t answer. I don’t care.”

The woman’s name* was Rachel Young, and she was truly the personal assistant from Hell.

She looked Lovelace up and down once more, then sighed. “I’ve come to inform you that it’s been completed. Unit 214 is being placed, and before you ask, this is not a drill or another experiment. It’s happening.”

Lovelace’s eyes widened. “What? _Now?”_

Rachel shook her head. “Not now. Seventeen, eighteen years, give or take. Get your affairs in order, start training, and for bureaucracy's sake keep the other side from finding out, no matter what. We need to get ready to raise hell.” She gave Lovelace a rare smile. “Literally.”

Lovelace worked her mouth for a second like a fish, opening and closing several times before she managed to get any words out. “Where? Where is it?” she asked. “Rachel--”

“Ms. Young,” Rachel corrected, “and it’s nearby, though its location is… imprecise at the moment. It’s safer if it’s kept hidden until the time when it will be needed, and believe me, by that time it will be impossible to miss. So don’t worry about it, Captain. Relax and keep a secret, and make sure no one tries to interfere. Understood?”

“Understood,” said Lovelace, but her voice was weak. She took a deep breath. “And if we fail, we can always start again.”

Rachel laughed mirthlessly. “We won’t, though. Not this time. Dr. Pryce is sure of it.”

“Oh. Good,” Lovelace said. “And… that’s it?”

“No, no. There’s one other thing.” Rachel tipped her head to the side. “Tell me, what have you been doing to advance our cause on the surface lately? I know you received a commendation after the election--”

\--which wasn’t me at all, thought Lovelace, but I won’t tell _you_ that--

“--but what about more recently? Within the past week, would you say?”

Lovelace looked away from Rachel’s questioning eyes. “Nothing large-scale. I’m working on it.”

There was a moment’s silence as Rachel’s other eyebrow climbed and Lovelace’s stomach plummeted. When she spoke, however, her voice was entirely neutral. “I see. I’ll inform Mr. Cutter of your… current state, then. Goodbye, Captain, and good luck.”

With that she turned her back on Lovelace, took a step, and sank into the ground like it was quicksand.

Lovelace stared after her for a moment, then pulled out her phone and dialed.

* * *

The phone in Minkowski’s office rang again, and again she ignored her urge to reach over and pick up. Part of her wondered what she was doing; it was almost certainly Lovelace calling, and there was no reason to ignore her. But the logic was offset by the angry little sting in her mind that wanted to get back at Lovelace by not talking to her, even though she knew that it hadn’t been Lovelace’s fault that Hell had wanted to see her. There was nothing she could have done to avoid the meeting. Of course there wasn’t.

Minkowski slammed a book down on the table, marking its down angrily on a spreadsheet with a scribble. Except, she thought, her inner voice hot and mad, this was her only respite from the mind-numbing boredom of categorizing and inventory, and Lovelace had promised and then made fun of her and cancelled and wasn’t that _just_ like a demon--

The phone stopped ringing, and in the silence that followed Minkowski’s anger started to drain. _She did promise to make up for it tomorrow. Give her a little bit of slack, why don’t you? She said we’d go out…_

...but tomorrow wasn’t tonight, and tonight she needed the distraction. A way to forget about the dread boiling in her stomach.

“Something’s coming,” said Minkowski, speaking aloud into the yellow glow of the bookstore but unsure why. Her voice sounded unnatural in the stillness, stifled and absorbed by the shelves of listening books, and she shuddered. The silence grew, consuming Minkowski as she sat and stared at at the shelves, while something horrible and anticipatory weighed in her stomach like a rock, anchoring her to her chair and freezing her in place. For a second the bookstore became a prison, a pin through Minkowski’s torso sticking her on a piece of cardboard.

The phone rang again, breaking the silence and the moment, and Minkowski took a deep breath. _Enough with this. Answer the goddamn phone. Lovelace doesn’t deserve to be punished this much._ With that thought, she got up and headed to the counter, picking it up. “Lovelace, what-”

The voice that interrupted her was decidedly not the voice of Captain Isabel Lovelace. It was more unpleasant, for one thing. For another, it had a thick Russian accent.

And for a third, she recognized it.

The Blessed Eternal, public voice of the collective of unfathomable, ineffable, and quite impossible to describe beings known as God, spoke in a monotone into the earpiece. “Minkowski,” it said, “it’s time.”

There was a long silence during which the gears in Minkowski’s brain ground and recalibrated to incorporate the new information. When her mouth started working again, she managed to stutter out a question. “Wait-- wait, what? Sorry, time for _what,_ exactly?”

“Time,” said the Blessed Eternal. “It is time for the Second Coming. We must prepare for war, Lieutenant.” Minkowski’s mouth went suddenly dry. She started to speak, but was cut off again. “You have time. You have seventeen years until the position of the savior is known. It will be nearby. Guard the secret from the enemy.” The voice paused. “We do not know of the nature of your relationship with the demon. Is very strange. If she is to find out, smite her.”

Minkowski swallowed hard, dread seeping like ice into her stomach. “Understood,” she said.

“Good.” Then the line went dead, leaving Minkowski with a silent receiver, the knowledge that this long-distance call was going to be hell on the bill, and a chill running through her veins.

It wasn’t that she and Lovelace were on the same side, not exactly; they worked for different purposes, did different things. They were, essentially, opposites. They always had been. But somewhere along the millennia Minkowski had started to think of them as colleagues and friends rather than as rivals, and it likely didn’t help that her experiences were essentially unshared by anyone else on either side. If Minkowski tried to talk about musicals with any angel, she would have gotten a blank stare and a head tilt at best and questions about why she held human inventions in any regard at worst. Lovelace at least let her talk, even if she didn’t understand or necessarily care about a word she was saying. Lovelace understood in one way or another what the world and the people living in it were like, because she had lived there with them and with Minkowski for so long.

Deep down Minkowski knew that she could smite her if she wanted to, and Lovelace knew she knew, and she knew that Lovelace knew she knew. But they both knew, in the same way, that she really couldn’t. Not if she wanted to live with herself.

With this in mind, Minkowski dialed Lovelace’s number to tell her about the conversation.

* * *

Several hours later, an angel and a demon were lying side-by-side on the floor of a bookstore together, staring blankly up at the ceiling.

“So,” said Lovelace, after a long silence. “What now? I mean, this is the 214th time my side has tried this, and your people are finally taking it seriously. We’re headed for Revelations, right?”

“Right,” said Minkowski.

“But we can’t-- it can’t just be this!” Lovelace sat up abruptly. “This can’t be _it._ Now, here… well, in seventeen years, I guess. But seriously? _Seriously?_ We can’t just let this happen, Minkowski.”

Minkowski propped herself up on her elbows and looked Lovelace in the eye. “And what, exactly, do you propose we do instead? We’re under orders. They even pulled the whole ‘If you told her, you’d have to kill her,’ thing with me,” she said, putting finger quotes around the words. “So what, we just… disobey?”

“Better that than just sitting here on our asses, don’t you think?” Lovelace shot Minkowski a sideways glance.

Minkowski opened her mouth, then shook her head and sighed. “Fine. But we have almost two decades before it happens, and if we get caught in the meantime, it was all your idea.”

“You say that like it’ll matter who had what idea if we get caught.” Despite the rueful tone in her voice, Lovelace rewarded Minkowski with a small smile. “I think that’s enough time, don’t you?”

“I don’t know,” said Minkowski, “but for everyone’s sake I hope so.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Plus there’s always the risk of being interrupted by goth teenagers coming there to express the darkness of their soul with the dead, who almost certainly don’t give a shit.  
> *After an extended dinner; restaurants are open as long as you want them to be when you’re a demon.  
> *The name pronounceable with the human mouth, at least.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! So, you may have noticed that I haven't updated in a bit. This is because my grandpa died last week and also I am very busy with school. I am committed to finishing this story and won't leave you all hanging, though!

Seventeen years in the future, the dial on the cosmic radio turned, flipping through channels one by one. The collective of genderless, indescribable, almost-omniscient-but-not-quite beings known as God stopped for a moment on a fundamentalist transmission, listening to the man on the radio spit hate and fire. They narrowed their eyes, and on Earth the recording equipment in the studio shut off, silencing the sound of bigotry in a shower of sparks and burst of static. Then the dial kept turning.

They landed, eventually, on an amateur channel being sent on an obscure frequency into the void.

“Hello, dear listeners,” said the voice of the boy on the radio, speaking to no one he knew of. “Captain’s log, stardate… uh… Tuesday.” He continued to speak, and the collective known as God approximated a smile.

Dear Listeners. That was much better name.

* * *

In the heart of some Southern California cities, there are still bits of the wild left. Canyons run behind neighborhoods and across streets. Some are fenced off, some are not, most are too steep for anyone but the most experienced or most determined of hikers to go down unprepared.

Doug Eiffel was neither of those things, but he was a teenage boy, and therefore stupid enough to transcend the laws of physics.* 

“Come _on!”_ he called to the lip of the canyon. “Just get down here!”

A head of wild, bright blue hair poked over the edge, looking down at Eiffel with a disdainful expression.* “And what, get skewered by cactus spines? No thank you, that is _not_ my idea of a good time.” The girl at the top of the canyon, who was called Hera, scowled. “Why are you so intent on going down there anyways? There’s nothing but dirt and coyote shit. And possibly actual coyotes. Do you want to fight a coyote, Eiffel? Do you really?”

“Uh, _yeah?_ Is that even a question?” Eiffel beckoned to Hera. “Come down! Do you really have anything better to be doing today?”

Hera stared for a moment, then sighed. “No. Unfortunately.” She took a deep breath, squaring her shoulders. “I’m going to regret this.” Then she started to pick her way slowly down the side of the canyon, a disdainful expression on her face the entire way. When she finally slid to the bottom in a shower of dirt and pebbles to stand beside Eiffel, she gave him what was most definitely a Look.* “Okay, I’m here. What now, oh great and glorious leader of whatever the hell we’re doing?”

Eiffel turned and gestured for Hera to follow him. “I found something really cool, you’ll love it.” He set off traipsing through the underbrush, and after a moment Hera went too, grumbling to herself.* 

Eventually Eiffel stopped at the edge of a small clearing in the underbrush, pointing into the middle of it. “Check it out!” He bounced on his heels, seeming for all the world like an excited puppy.

Hera followed his finger to where he was indicating, in the middle of the clearing. “A… pile of garbage. How enlightening.”

“Not just a pile of garbage, a pile of _really cool mechanical garbage!”_ Eiffel beamed, as pleased with himself as a cat who just brought home a small, dead animal to lay at its owner’s feet. “I mean, with your brains and my indisposable can-do attitude we can probably get this stuff put together in no time, right?”

Hera looked at the round, hopeful face of the boy standing in front of her for a second, taking in his expression. Eiffel’s enthusiasm was, if not infectious, at the very least permeating; it seeped into everything he did, and most of the things she did just by association. You couldn’t be friends with Eiffel without being dragged into whatever shenanigans he was planning.

This was likely why she was his only friend.

Hera’s shoulders slumped in defeat, more as a show than as a reflection of her actual emotions. “Fine,” she said, the weariness of the world evident in her voice. “Fine, I _guess_ I’ll help you.” Unsaid were the words _Because it beats hanging around alone in the house all day with nothing to do,_ or _Because if I don’t I know you’ll try to do it anyways and probably hurt someone or yourself._ However, they were unsaid in a very loud way that Eiffel was nevertheless cheerfully oblivious enough not to notice.

“Great!” he said. Then he turned and started wading his way through the brush towards the pile of, as he said, “really cool mechanical garbage”.

And if Hera was honest with herself, she had to admit that it was pretty cool garbage. There were, she could make out, at least enough parts for her to build some fairly interesting things. And she could make out an FM radio transmitter peeking through the dented and rusting metal, a bent antenna, and what might have been a car battery… Eiffel had been wanting to make a pirate radio broadcast for a while, ever since he had been fired from his internship at the local station for using the equipment on the off-hours to broadcast his stream-of-consciousness opinions. This might be their chance to really build one, a more powerful one than their other attempts. It seemed meant to be.

Hera followed Eiffel over and started to rummage through the pile. This had been a good day to wear practical clothing.

* * *

The dilemma of non-functional pockets in pants marketed towards women has often been discussed and debated as one of the major failings in the clothing industry, if not in modern life itself. Hera’s solution to this problem with her “jackpack”: a jacket that included about 19 different hidden pockets within it, including one on the back big enough to fit an entire laptop. Unfortunately, she was not wearing it on the day the Apocalypse was set into motion, but it would have been cool if she had.

* * *

To the parents of Hera and Eiffel-- in Hera’s case adoptive parents, though they didn’t know it-- and to the teachers at school, and to anyone else generally involved with them for any reason, they were always known as “the two of them”, or when being addressed, “the both of you”. It had been that way since they were small; their families had been neighbors, and when you go to the same preschool and camp and library storytimes as someone you tend to get to know them, especially after at least one screaming fight over a stuffed toy. The friend-making process had accelerated when they started elementary school, with each of them trying to cling to someone familiar in the vast pool of screaming children. Eiffel’s struggles with ADHD and an undiagnosed auditory processing disorder and Hera’s desperate anxiety over things that were usually termed “not a big deal” had also been somewhat helpful in that sense; a bond formed by being mutually hated by your peers and disliked by most adults is a strong one.*

The fact that the Antichrist and the Second Coming of Jesus were best friends was a twist that many people had not seen coming. If they had, it’s possible things might have made that much more sense.

* * *

Hera sat back, wiped the sweat off her brow, and looked at her construction. It wasn’t, she had to admit, beautiful. It was in fact possibly the least aesthetically pleasing thing she had ever built, and she had built a lot of ugly things in her seventeen years on the Earth (though she loved them all like her own children). But despite the broken rustedness of the radio and the dents in the vertical antenna and some of the exposed wires poking out here and there, despite how old the mic was…

Hera poked the transmitter a few more times, and a tiny green light lit up on it. She glanced at Eiffel, wide-eyed. _We’re live,_ she mouthed.

Eiffel, from where he was sitting and systematically taking apart a flashlight, jerked in surprise. “Oh god, what now?” he muttered, speaking out of the corner of his mouth. “Should we--?”

Hera rolled her eyes and gestured at the mic. _Talk!_ She mouthed. Carefully she scooted out of the way of the mic, still pointing. Eiffel didn’t move, and she wrinkled her nose in exasperation. “You wanted to be a radio host,” she whispered heatedly, “so _go ahead and host!”_

“Alright, alright!” Eiffel put down the remains of the flashlight and moved over as quietly as he could, which wasn’t very. He sat down cross-legged, cleared his throat, and picked up the mic. He took a deep breath, manufactured a smile, and said: “Hello, dear listeners! It’s ya boy Dougie Fresh at the mic, bringing you sporadic updates from the trash heap and telling everyone personal anecdotes that none of you wanted to hear. I’m here with my co-host Hera-- say hi, Hera--”

Eiffel smiled at her, and Hera sighed, moving slowly over next to him. “Hi, Hera,” she said, fulfilling her obligation to make the tired and obvious joke. “For the record,” she continued, “even though I had everything to do with this, it was all his fault.”

Eiffel’s eyebrows shot up and he laughed, a somewhat nervous quaver in his voice. “I’m offended! Kind of. Not really. Should I be?”

“When in doubt, yes,” Hera deadpanned. Then she shook her head. “Nah, we both share the blame here. Also, we need to solidify our alibis for when the cops show up.”

“Wait, is this illegal?”

“Not if we don’t get caught.”

“Alrighty then! You heard it here first, folks: nothing is illegal if you don’t get caught.” Eiffel laughed again, this time more genuinely. “But anyways! Hera, are we ready to get rockin’ and rollin’?”

The rhythm of the banter had started to get to Hera. “Of course. Let’s get strollin’.”

“Hell yeah,” he replied. “So, since we’re incredibly obscure at this point and no one has sent in any questions for us to answer or messages because no one knows who we are, I propose our first order of business be discussing the logistics of the Cars universe. Dear listeners, have you ever wondered what the history of the Cars universe is? You haven’t! Probably. But now we’re going to make you wonder. We’ll start with a basic existential question: can the cars in the Cars universe die? Hera, if you would care to present a theory…”

* * *

The show finished an hour or two later, after a heated argument about whether or not the existence of sentient cars in the Cars universe proved the extinction of human beings.* But later that night, in the cool darkness, Eiffel came back alone to the canyon. He picked his way carefully down the slope and headed to the trash heap, listening to the crickets around him. It was colder at the bottom of the canyon, and he shivered, hugging his arms to himself. The idea of coyotes popped into his mind for a moment, but he dismissed it, shaking his head for his own benefit. There probably were coyotes, but Hera was exaggerating when she talked about fighting them. Almost definitely. When he had convinced himself enough, he continued on towards the pile of junk and the radio.

After a bit of fiddling he was able to turn it on, starting to broadcast. Then he stretched out on his back on the ground, staring up at the stars.

It seemed like there were more of them than usual.

“Hello, dear listeners,” he said. “Captain’s log, stardate… uh… Tuesday. Like 3 am on Tuesday, but Tuesday. And if you’re awake right now, listeners, you really shouldn’t be. Just like I technically shouldn’t be.” He lapsed into silence for a moment. “I’m thinking about getting existential right now, but that seems like a really bad idea. Instead, I’m going to tell everyone out there that if you want to send questions or stories to me and my co-host Hera, who is asleep like a normal person right now, you can text it to me here--” Eiffel rattled off the phone number, speaking without much hope for any answers. “We’re probably not going to give you any good advice, and we might make fun of you, but at the very least you’ll have told someone about your problems. So send us your questions, and we’ll give you answers tomorrow at… probably noon-ish. Maybe. Some time. Until then, here’s a story guaranteed to make you cringe with secondhand embarrassment: my life.”

An hour or so later, after speaking at length into-- as far as he knew-- dead air, Eiffel sat up and headed home. The strange tightness in his chest, the compulsion he had to speak and hear and be listened to, had loosened during the course of his broadcast, and even the cold of the night felt a little less all-encompassing. It helped that he was tired now; sleep would come easier, and it seemed less likely that the strange dreams would come back. He yawned, stretching. Somehow, it felt a little more like everything was going to be okay now.

That feeling was, of course, very wrong, but he didn’t know that.

* * *

And in an apartment overlooking the canyon a block or so away, Lovelace turned off the radio. She looked down at the number written on a torn piece of paper in front of her, then at her cell phone. Then she picked it up and sent a text, wording it carefully. Advice wasn’t something she necessarily needed, and the guy on the radio had seemed young, but… maybe a fresh perspective would be helpful, somehow. Failing that, maybe the kid could find a way to make fun of her on the radio. Minkowski might get a kick out of that.

Lovelace put down the phone, unaware of the wheels she had set into motion, and stared out the window into the night sky, looking at the stars.

It seemed like there were more of them than usual.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *He was also the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, which may have helped.  
> *Hera had dyed her hair the minute she entered high school and never looked back.  
> *On a scale of looks from one to ten, this was an eleven of a Look, one that said “I resent you and this situation” as clearly as if she had opened her mouth.  
> *To anyone watching, the fact that both teens were not immediately covered with enough spines to make them resemble hedgehogs would have been a sure sign of demonic and angelic powers. Fortunately, no one was watching.  
> *But not a romantic one. Hera had never looked once in Eiffel’s direction for a partner, being too busy staring at the other girls. For his part, Eiffel was staring at the boys enough for both of them.  
> *Eiffel said no, humans and cars had just become symbiotic beings-- “like cyborgs”-- while Hera posed that the cars were the result of AI development leading the humanity’s extinction. Their theories should not be taken as indications of their demonic or angelic ancestry. They were just teenagers. Also, neither of them were correct.


	5. Chapter 5

A supervisor is, traditionally, a person superficially in charge of the work of employees on lower bureaucratic levels than them. They’re middle managers, also known as overseers, foremen, monitors, area coordinators, or facilitators. 

In Hell, however, a supervisor is something… somewhat different. 

The supernatural being known alternatively as the Devil, the Adversary, Satan, and Dr. Miranda Pryce looked down from her seat at her elevated workbench to the fallen angel in front of her, evaluating him with a cold, staticky gaze. “Hello, Warren. Long time no see. I heard you managed the situation in the lower-level vats quite well.”

The demon Warren Kepler, who appeared in the form of a grey-haired man, looked back at her and nodded.* He kept his eyes trained studiously on the space behind Pryce’s head, being very careful not to meet her eyes. “Yes, Dr. Pryce. I’ve…  _ contained _ the rebellion, and the ones responsible have been taken care of.”

Pryce raised her eyebrows, tapping the pair of tweezers she had been working with slowly on the tabletop. “Oh, really,” she said, in the flat tones of something that was not a question.

Kepler didn’t seem to notice, and he cleared his throat. “I’ve put the perpetrators in the Tartarus lockup. Medium security, medium lava, maximum mental disruption. Getting locked in an echo chamber of their own worst thoughts should break them soon enough, and then we’ll have a nice set of grunts again. As for the others, well, they’ve accepted me as their… leader. I hope that’s to your liking.”

“Frankly, Colonel, I could care less about the petty matters Marcus puts you up to.” Pryce put the tweezers down and stood, walking down the stairs to stand directly in front of Kepler. She stared up at him. “A new time is coming. You know this.”

Kepler swallowed nervously. Pryce, despite her relatively diminutive stature, could always make people feel about the size of a chess piece. “The Antichrist. I’m aware, Dr. Pryce.”

“Then I’m sure you’re aware that we have Isabel on Earth dealing with the matter. However…” Pryce shook her head. “Captain Lovelace has been faltering. As of recently, she has been doing absolutely nothing to advance our cause.”

“But the turmoil of the planet--”

“--has absolutely nothing to do with her actions. Warren, she is failing at her duties again, and we  _ cannot  _ have that. Not now. Not when it’s most important.”

Kepler furrowed his brow in confusion. “Then why don’t you remove her from her post?”

Pryce laughed, but there was something sharp in it, like a blade so well-honed that it could slice through your throat and you wouldn’t even notice until you bled out. A scalpel of a laugh. “Two reasons, Colonel. First, because Isabel knows the ins and outs of the human world better than anyone on our side. Until such time as 214 is ready, we don’t want to draw too much direct attention, and I’m afraid that you and your subordinates are not very good at being unobtrusive. And secondly… through her, we have an opening.”

“An opening?” Kepler asked.

“Tell me, Warren. Have you ever heard of an angel named Renee Minkowski?”

* * *

There was once a girl named Rhea, a girl who could never speak, and she was Hera’s older sister. More accurately, she was an older model of Hera, a previous version, the predecessor, the template. The most recent common ancestor. She was also Isabel Lovelace’s failure. It was a very long story. And i n a room in Heaven, there was all that remained of Rhea. 

A being too bright to look at sat across from her, over a pure white table, looking at the girl on the other side, and when it spoke there was an unmistakable Russian accent tinting its voice. “Hello,” said the Blessed Eternal. 

Blank, luminous green eyes blinked slowly in a face like a doll’s, expressionless and smooth as porcelain but for the part that was torn away, exposing the sparking wires hidden beneath the flesh. Rhea couldn’t have answered the greeting if she wanted to, which made it fortunate that she didn’t want to. There was no point in it, anyways-- self-absorbed people will always find a way to have a one-sided conversation, and angels are by and large the most self-absorbed people you’ll ever have the bad luck to meet. 

They’re also prone, ironically, to God complexes.*

The Blessed Eternal continued, speaking to Rhea slowly, as if she couldn’t hear or think as well as speak. He was, very obviously, utterly oblivious to her burning hatred. “They’ve restarted the program again. Version 214 is on Earth. She is the correct one. The one who finally hasn’t gone wrong. It is beginning, and we will triumph. Earth will be our Heaven again.”

Rhea may not have been able to speak, but she could laugh, and that’s what she proceeded to do. It sounded mildly like a microwave beeping, but more mocking. She slowly shook her head, drumming her fingers on the tabletop in a rhythm that spoke for her as clearly as words would.  _ No, it won’t be. No one wants that. _

The halo of light surrounding the figure was too bright to see through, but the being inside seemed mildly surprised at this turn of events, in the way a person might be surprised to hear of a fish offer gold or land if they would just do it the favor of throwing it back in the water. Curious, but not worth giving up a guaranteed dinner. “They often do not want what is good for them. The only alternative is Hell.”

_ There is a third option. Leave humanity alone. Let them make their own world, free of you and free of the demons and just free. And while you’re at it, let me out of here! _

“Not possible,” said the Blessed Eternal. “You are our key to Isabel Lovelace’s mind, you and Lieutenant Minkowski. And Isabel Lovelace is key to our enemy.”

_ Whatever you say. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Kepler gave the impression of being anywhere from his forties to his sixties, but was in fact 4000 years old and looking fairly good for his age, if by “good” you mean “not dead” and not "attractive" or "handsome" or "aesthetically pleasing" or any other definition of the word.  
> *Renee Minkowski wasn’t like those other angels, but Lovelace made sure to only tell her that when she wanted to be especially annoying.


End file.
